"Haha…" the elderly man loudly laughed. "Your performance is great. Although you’re only in the sixth tier of Spirit Stage, you showed such high battle prowess that even I was surprised. Your flesh sparkles without blemish, your foundation isn’t bad at all, and with all that Qi you have…."
As the elder spoke, he cupped some water from the ocean below and allowed it to flow between his fingers. "I can’t believe it’s the purest form of Qi, everything refined nine times. Such a rare sight, I didn’t think the Qing-Yun Sect would have such a great sprout like yourself. With such a perfect body, who else would I choose other than you?"
Towards the end, the elder paused a bit before smiling. "I originally wasn’t certain of the outcome, but who would’ve thought you happened to be injured? Is this not the perfect opportunity for me? I put my life on the line, and now here I am—I’ve successfully infiltrated your Sea of Knowledge!"
‘So this old thing thought I was injured….’ Fang Xing could not hold himself back any longer and laughed.
The elderly man trembled when he heard such laughter. "What are you laughing at?" he coldly asked.
Fang Xing smiled. "I really didn’t want to tell you, as it might be too cruel for you to accept. Among the twenty or so people here, I should have been the last person you picked!"
"Eh?" the old man questioned, alarmed. "Why is that?"
Fang Xing’s expression changed as he snickered. "Because you’ll regret it so much you’ll run back into the altar and never come out again."
The elderly man suddenly felt a terrible premonition come to him, but he quickly ignored it. "I am a True Spirit in the Golden Core Stage. Although all of my cultivation is gone now, my True Spirit has received almost no damage and is still powerful. With my Golden Core body destroyed, the most difficult part now was using the spell of Spirit Possession, but now that I’ve entered you successfully, taking over your body is as easy as waving my hand!"
As the elderly man spoke with such a loud voice, he grabbed towards Fang Xing with his hand. The size of the palm was so large it seemed enough to cover all of the heaven and earth at once; Fang Xing and the small altar below were easily covered by his palm.
A Golden Core Stage beast king. Even if his golden core had been shattered and all of his cultivation was lost, the strength of his True Spirit couldn’t even be compared with just Fang Xing in Spirit Stage; the elder’s arrogance was not without good reason. The size of the True Spirit was also based on the strength and power of its owner, and the size of the elderly man’s True Spirit was a hundred times larger than Fang Xing’s. Put simply, his True Spirit’s power was a hundred times greater than Fang Xing’s, as well.
Yet, despite facing the elder’s giant hand, Fang Xing showed no signs of fear, and there was actually a hint of excitement instead. As the giant hand drew close, Fang Xing did not even attempt to evade and only gently closed his eyes.
‘The Decapitation’s Portrayal…. The True Samadhi Fire…. Activate….’ In moments, a feeling of anger swept across Fang Xing’s mind, and atop the head of Fang Xing’s True Spirit appeared a lit flame. It didn’t seem so special, and when faced with the old man, it looked even more like a lone flame fighting to preserve itself against a violent squall. However, even though the flame flickered, there was no sign of it dying out anytime soon.
"Heh heh, you want to stop me with such a puny trick? You’re too arrogant, young one!" As a Golden Core Stage beast king, he had gone through his entire life without restriction; were there any tricks he hadn’t seen before? Not even the Sacred Lotus Flame of the Buddhism Sector or the Nine Serene Fire of the Northern Beiming Clan were enough to scare him, so how would he now be frightened by such a small flicker of flame from Fang Xing?
Rumble….
The giant hand that shook the heavens and cracked the earth covered Fang Xing in his entirety. Taking over the physical body of a weak Spirit Stage cultivator was all too simple for a Golden Core Stage master; the Spirit Possession would be successful with just a quick grab and swallow.
Yet the moment the aged hand came into contact with the flame atop Fang Xing’s head, something mysterious occurred.
Tssss….
Upon contact, it seemed as though the flame had actually burned, and a wisp of smoke trail out from beneath the giant hand only to fall into the surrounding ocean. The giant hand immediately shrank by a size, and on the cold and arrogant face of the elder man appeared an abrupt look of confusion as he immediately drew his palm back.
"What is this? How does it burn my True Spirit?" The old man shook his hand, as though that small flame had actually caused him a degree of damage.
Fang Xing opened his eyes and giggled. "This is why I said you’d regret it! One of my elders once told me that I should be scared of everything throughout my life. In the realm of cultivation, there is a countless number of powerful people, and you cannot look down on anyone. But there is one type that I do not need to be afraid of at all: people like you! People like you who would come and try to take over my physical body through Spirit Possession are doing nothing but seeking death!"
Fang Xing’s seriousness had given the elderly man a bad feeling, and the latter flew back a thousand feet before coldly exclaiming, "There definitely is something peculiar about you. Well, I shan’t bother you, then; I’ll just change to someone else!"
The elderly man then turned into a ray of light and attempted to dash out of Fang Xing’s Sea of Knowledge. He was someone who was swift and clear in his decisions, and when he saw things were not exactly as he’d anticipated, he immediately attempted to flee. After all, he’d been sealed for a few hundred years and had only just now gained a chance at freedom; he did not dare to take any risks.
However, Fang Xing let out a laugh from behind him. "Motherf*cker, you want to leave now that you’re here? You think this is some cheap wh*rehouse you can enter and leave as you please?" As he laughed, the flame atop his head suddenly lowered itself into the endless ocean below.
Once the True Samadhi Fire was activated through Blue-Flame Grand Smithing, the entire ocean turned into a sea of fire. Before the elderly man’s True Spirit had the opportunity to escape, he was already surrounded by the sea of flames. He screamed in surprise and transformed into his true form—a giant Peng bird—to start flying and dashing in all directions.
"Damn! I—your great master—am not going to possess you, so can’t I leave?
"This flame…. What exactly is this thing? How can it burn someone like me?
"Waaaaah…. Impossible! There are no Divine, Ancient, Principle, or Base techniques in this realm that have such power…."
When Fang Xing saw the giant Peng bird burnt and screaming within the sea of flames, he felt even more proud of himself. It was only natural that his True Samadhi Fire could burn the Peng—this was not a Divine, Ancient, Principle, or Base technique, but an Immortal one. It was a technique that belonged to a higher stratum.
All told, the beast king who’d just escaped the altar had some rather rotten luck. Fang Xing hadn’t put all of his focus on the True Samadhi Fire, and his low cultivation level meant he couldn’t really use this skill at will; he could only barely use it to help cleanse his body thanks to Blue-Flame Grand Smithing. However, for the beast king’s True Spirit to come into Fang Xing’s Sea of Knowledge was the same as voluntarily entering Fang Xing’s home turf.
In such a place, Fang Xing was...
Invincible!
Only in the lower realm, but invincible!
Forget about a beast king of the Golden Core Stage, even a beast saint of the Budding Soul Stage would still find it difficult to gain any advantage within Fang Xing’s Sea of Knowledge.
Assailed by the burning sea of flame, the giant mountain-sized Peng bird wasn’t burned—not even a single charred mark was present—but the size of his body shrank nonstop while smoke fell off of him and into the vast ocean. Meanwhile, as Fang Xing sat on the altar, he could feel a mysterious energy flowing towards him to increase the power of his own True Spirit.
Fang Xing’s small and weak True Spirit was now increasing in size while the giant Peng bird was shrinking.
"What exactly is this fire? Why is it burning your great master’s True Spirit?
"Boy, stop it now. Your great master has already changed his mind. I will go and possess someone else; I won’t annoy you anymore….
"Hurry and let me leave, dammit! You’re really going to burn me to death? I’m going to kill you…."
The Peng bird had now lost all of his original arrogance and was screaming in fear like a stray dog while panickedly flying in all directions. No matter which direction he turned to, however, there were more flames in the way and he couldn’t so much as leave this place any longer. By the end of it, he let out a howl of desperation and—as though throwing away his life—he thrust himself towards Fang Xing. When he felt there was no hope of fleeing, a viciousness rose up within him and he wanted to take Fang Xing down with him.
"Haha, old bastard, how dare you be so arrogant in my playground?" Fang Xing didn’t believe in the phrase "respect the old and cherish the young". When he saw the giant bird coming his way, he let out a laugh and jumped up from the altar, throwing out a punch with an explosive sound. The surrounding sea of fire gathered together into the shape of a giant fist before slamming into the Peng bird, who could only let out a mournful cry as its body shrank by another size and was flung away like a stringless kite.
Swoosh….
Fang Xing leapt up above the Peng and stomped his feet downwards, causing the flames below him to form into a giant foot that stepped down.
"Gaaaah…" the large Peng bird let out a bird’s cry that was incomparably sorrowful.
"Let you take me over…."
"Gaaaaaah…."
"Let you be arrogant…."
"Gaaaah…."
"Let you call yourself ‘great master’...."
"Gah…."
"Let you… let you… let you look like a bird…."
"Gaaaaaah…. Enough…. Stop stepping on me…."
With each punch and stomp, the large Peng bird became smaller and smaller.
In truth, even if Fang Xing did nothing, even just letting his True Samadhi Fire slightly graze him would cause the bird’s body to shrink by quite a large amount.
It wasn’t that the beast king wasn’t strong. Despite being sealed for over three hundred years, he’d managed to break through the seal and then into Fang Xing’s Sea of Knowledge, proving just how extremely powerful his Spirit Sense truly was.
But it was just as Fang Xing said: he had rotten luck.
When it came to Spirit Possession, no matter who was chosen as a target—even if it was Xiao Jianming or Xu Linyun—the person who wished to take over the body had to be much more powerful than the person being taken over. Fang Xing, however, had learned the True Samadhi Fire and was able to completely restrain all of the techniques someone would use with their True Spirit to perform a Spirit Possession.
If the large Peng bird had already passed the thunder tribulation, he might have been better off, but meeting head-on with the True Samadhi Fire without going through such a tribulation was effectively suicide.
The beatings today had forced the Demonic King Peng back into his human form. His mountain-like body had been reduced to just the size of a small hut, and he lay with his arms and legs spread out. With his eyes and brows slanted like so, he even looked rather pitiful.
"Are you… really going to kill me?" the Demonic King Peng pathetically yelled out, his voice shaking all the while. It even sounded as though he was sobbing between his words.